Cecil McBee

Cecil McBee is one of the most in-demand acoustic bassists in postwar jazz, a deep, singing tone anchoring hundreds of recordings since he arrived in New York in 1964. Born in 1935 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he switched from clarinet to the upright bass at seventeen and went on to work with Charles Lloyd, Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane, Yusef Lateef, and Abdullah Ibrahim while leading his own dates for the Strata East label from the 1970s. His compositions earned two National Endowment for the Arts grants and have been recorded by McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, and others. He won a Grammy for his playing on the tribute album Blues for Coltrane and was inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame in 1991. Alongside drummer Billy Hart, McBee forms the rhythm-section core of the all-star groups Saxophone Summit and The Cookers, and he served for decades as a distinguished professor at the New England Conservatory.